As a kid, I did a lot of my comic reading in the early 90s and as a kid in the early 90s that largely meant X-Men. The X-Men were the “it” team of the moment and seemed so far and above the rest of the pack in terms of coolness. Batman was still in style on the strength of the Burton films and the animated series and Spider-Man (and Venom) was also pretty hot. When it came to comic and comic card trading with friends, those all commanded top dollar. One franchise that did not was The Fantastic Four.
It could have just been my little corner of the world, but The Fantastic Four were regarded as your dad’s comic book franchise. They were pretty lame. If you went to Toys R Us hoping to score a Venom, Spider-Man, or Punisher action figure there was a decent chance you would have to settle for the Fantastic Four instead. I personally never settled, though I was a little interested in The Human Torch. Even though I didn’t particularly care about the franchise, my earliest Cartoon Network memory is becoming aware of the channel by seeing a listing for a Fantastic Four cartoon in TV Guide airing on the network. We didn’t have access to the channel in my market, but it was about a year later that we did and I wanted to check out that damn cartoon. Too bad it was pretty bad, but not as bad as those lone cartoons based on The Thing where the character was a kid who activated his Thing power via a magic ring: Thing Ring do your thing!
Despite my feelings on The Fantastic Four growing up, it’s hard to argue that they’re not Marvel royalty. Created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, the group is one of the oldest superhero teams with a memorable rogues gallery headlined by Dr. Doom. When comic book movies exploded in popularity, 20th Century Fox threw The Fantastic Four into the mix with a pair of films in the 2000s that made money, but didn’t seem to make a huge cultural impact. Fox decided a reboot was necessary and the franchise returned in 2015. Again, it made money, but not the kind of money that gets studio executives excited. Fox was reportedly still kicking the tires on more movies, but the acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Disney in 2019 put an end to that. Now, Marvel and Disney are back with what it hopes will be the definitive take on the franchise in film. Ever since Avengers: Endgame basically put a bow on the massive story begun with 2007’s Iron Man, Marvel has been searching for that massive hit that catapults them into the next big event film. Attempts via Disney+ and other films have been met with mixed results, but can The Fantastic Four get audiences as hyped as Avengers did back in 2012?
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a film that has been in the works basically ever since Disney acquired 20th Century Fox. It took some time to get right, but once it did we ended up with a picture helmed by Matt Shakman with a screenplay by Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer. The film stars Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing. The film is set in 1964, but a futuristic take on the era. This is a world where technology has advanced by leaps and bounds thanks to incredibly smart people like Richards. When we find him early in the film he’s working on teleportation just to give you an idea where we are as a society. As such, it doesn’t look like 1964 other than some design cues and the setting is really it’s own character. The closest example I can think of is Batman (1989) and it’s not 1940s setting that also kind of looks like 1940s America.
When we meet The Fantastic Four we’re informed right away that this film starts with their fourth anniversary as a team. Their origin is relayed via montage delivered by an in-universe television special and includes some cameos of their more famous adversaries though with one notable omission. When we actually meet the team, we learn right away that Sue and Reed are expecting a child, something they had been trying for with little success for years. This also sets off massive amounts of anxiety for the father-to-be who can’t help but wonder what effect their cosmic-induced mutations will have on his unborn child. Concerns have to be dismissed for an unusual individual soon reveals themself to the world: Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner), aka The Silver Surfer. She comes baring the unfortunate news that Galactus (Ralph Ineson) has marked Earth for consumption. This naturally comes as a surprise to all involved and it falls on The Fantastic Four to journey into space and barter with the world-devouring entity in hopes of sparing the Earth. They do manage to make it all the way to where Galactus dwells for a face-to-face with the massive entity and find a being who actually is willing to make a deal. The only problem is Galactus desires but one thing: the unborn son of Reed and Sue.
That becomes the central conflict of the film: would a parent give away their own child to save the world? It’s a pretty unfair question to ask, but I’m sure you can guess what Reed and Sue want to do and also guess that the rest of the world has a different opinion. The film mostly keeps its focus on that, but also finds time to show Ben trying to find his place in the world and Johnny’s obsession with trying to uncover more information on Shalla-Bal. The film is a tidy 114 minutes and never loses sight of the fact that this is The Fantastic Four’s film. It sounds cliche, but they do a great job of maintaining that family element without resorting to terrible sitcom tropes. This isn’t Full House, but it’s also not some anti-Full House either. There’s conflict between members of the family, but it’s organic. These characters know each other extremely well and love each other. They can annoy each other, but they also rely on each other. And I like that the film remembers that these are all super smart astronauts. Johnny isn’t some dumb jock spending all of his time trying to pick up chicks and The Thing isn’t a big grump who just wants to smash stuff. There’s nuance to all of them and I found it really gratifying to see them rally around a young Franklin Richards (Ada Scott and what Wikipedia refers to as “several other babies”) because that’s what The Fantastic Four should do.
When you have a cast that includes a rock man, a silver woman, and a planet devouring god-being you’re going to need some special effects. Marvel Studios does a solid job bringing characters like The Thing to life. You’re not going to forget that he’s a CGi being, but he doesn’t look out of place. Silver Surfer is also handled rather well and the film is pretty confident about placing this ridiculous being into the film and not making a big deal out of it. Galactus hews pretty close to his classic design with some modern embellishments, but the film definitely doesn’t shy away from showing the being. The colors are muted, but not removed or replaced and I suppose he looks as good as he probably could. The sets look like real sets in many places which is a nice touch over the green screen sets the MCU traditionally relies upon. H.E.R.B.I.E., the resident helper robot, looks like a mix of practical and CG elements and will likely be a crowd pleaser. Maybe not on the same level as Krypto, but kids will enjoy the little robot.
The film does move fast which may have some questioning if it should have been longer. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword as I think audiences have superhero fatigue and the two and a half hour movies have become exhausting. I very much like how the film gives you the cliff notes version of the origin, though I can also understand some people wondering just what exactly Sue Storm’s powers are? Mr. Fantastic doesn’t get to show off his powers much and the crew really doesn’t get to engage with villains for much of the film. It’s a more procedural film with most of the action reserved for the last act. For action buffs, that’s a bad thing. For me personally, I wasn’t bothered by it. I think it helps set The Fantastic Four apart from more action-heavy franchises. I’m interested in these characters more as characters than as superheroes. It’s an approach that I think will serve the X-Men well whenever they finally get to run wild over the MCU.
One final point of criticism I have for the film resides with the ending. If you want zero spoilers about that ending (i.e. when we can expect to see The Fantastic Four again) then skip the rest of this paragraph as I’m going to talk about the mid-credits stinger. Yes, this film has a scene during the credits meant to hype the next adventure. Throughout the film I was quite content with how contained it was. There wasn’t any homework and I didn’t feel like Marvel was setting up another movie. Nothing felt sacrificed or incomplete for the sake of a larger narrative. Then came that mid-credits scene. I won’t actually spoil wht happens in the scene, but it concludes with “The Fantastic Four will return in Avengers: Dooms Day.” I don’t know if I let out an audible groan, but I felt like it. This film did such a good job of making me care about these characters that I don’t want to see them quickly thrust into an even larger ensemble. Now, the scene did follow a “Four years later,” message so it gives Marvel Studios a chunk of unexplored time they can go back to for later films, if they want, but I’d much rather see another Fantastic Four film before seeing them integrated with the Avengers. I know this Dooms Day thing is what the studio is hoping will do Infinity War/Endgame dollars, but I think Marvel and Disney are chasing a dragon there.
Such concerns could be all for nothing. We’ll see. It also doesn’t really harm First Steps as a movie experience which is one I had a lot of fun with. I don’t think it’s in contention for best comic book adaptation or anything, but it’s a solid B+ theater experience. For the first time in my life I actually care about The Fantastic Four. I want to see more of these characters, this cast, and this really fun setting. Hopefully we do get more of that and hopefully this movie kicks off a new era for The Fantastic Four. The devoted fans have certainly waited a long time for this.
To my surprise, I don’t have any MCU reviews on this blog so here’s the best I can do for related posts:
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